


Martha drabbles

by sophinisba



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-31
Updated: 2009-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-01 13:02:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles written for prompts at the writing_game community.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flight Dynamics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: thrust

Sometimes the TARDIS moves like a toy thrown by a child, jolting you every which way. Other times it's like a "proper spaceship" from sci-fi TV, with buttons and levers controlling the engines and thrusters, steering you to precisely the right spot. Sometimes it moves just like a phone booth (which is to say, it won't budge).

Most often though, it moves like the Doctor's mind, in jumps and connections that no one else could fathom, so you're never quite sure how you got here, but you can't stop grinning all the same, happy to be along for the ride.


	2. Easy to Trace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompts: The Tracks of My Tears and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

It doesn't take long to see through that manic smile, to know it's pasted on. He's laughing his way through another near apocalypse with another pretty girl by his side because that's what he does, it's what knows how to do.

Martha's used to working hard to get what she wants. She never settles for second best, and she doesn't want to believe he's settling for her.

Adventure's one thing, she tells herself, but you'll never get satisfaction living your life as a substitute for someone else. Too bad by the time she figures it out she's already in love.


	3. Separate Shelves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: bookends

For him the autumn of 1913 is a time blocked off, weeks lined up like journals on a shelf, bookended by the opening and closing of a watch. If he missed the woman he left there, he never said. Maybe that's how his mind copes with the chaos of so many centuries; he's got his past catalogued like a library and only calls it back at need.

Martha envies him that. She too is time traveller, doctor, storyteller, hero. Daughter, sister, and wife, besides. But the servant girl never goes away – some part of her is always on her knees.


	4. Would I Lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompts: verity/stowaway/lock

After two days curled up in a wooden crate in the cargo hold she crawls out, tells the guards her story even though they're telling her to shut up, and they're the ones with the guns.

They lock her up and say they don't believe her, but later one of them comes back with three friends and has her tell it again. The next day there are two more. Word spreads to the whole crew and finally to the captain, who wants to know why they should believe a stowaway.

Martha says, "What else is there left to believe in?"


	5. We're Not the Same

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: One (U2 song)

Martha thought the Doctor would weep for his own pain, for her family's humiliation, or for the billions dead on the planet that was the closest thing he had to a home. She never thought he'd shed tears while he begged the evil bastard to go on living. But dying in his arms, the Master didn't seem surprised.

 _That's them then_ , she thought. _Travel through time and space, hurt each other and then do it again, still they get to carry each other._

Too alike to get along, or to ever let go.

That's when she understood she couldn't stay.


	6. Stress Positions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: fetal

It's Martha's turn to sleep next, and she _needs_ it, with the work this invasion's put her through, but she's not prepared to find Toshiko curled up on the floor. Toshiko startles awake when Martha touches her shoulder.

"There's a cot, you know."

"Yeah, I'm… Bad habits from bad times." She tucks her hair behind her ears, stands up and starts for the door. "Thanks for waking me. Good luck."

Martha wastes her two hours lying awake wondering what the bad times were and what Torchwood has in store for them next. But then, it's not Toshiko's job to explain.


	7. Ten Fans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: trickster/shape

"Thank God he's still him," Rose when they can catch a breath. "The first time I saw him regenerate, I couldn't believe it was the same person. Took me ages to learn to trust him again."

Martha nods. Of course they're all near fainting with relief that they're still alive and the world hasn't ended, but she can't help feeling relieved as well as Rose that, for everything else that's changed, this Doctor (and the new one too!) still looks like man she knows. She's not sure how she'd take it if he did like the Master and shaped himself into some slick new thing that still smiled at them like an old friend. She may not be travelling with him anymore, but she never wants to stop trusting him.

"Course, someday he'll have to change again. That's just how it works. Still…"

Yes, Martha thinks, happy it's not today.


End file.
